More on "The Blot's Double Secret"

Armando Botto armando.botto at libero.it
Sat Nov 24 22:25:02 CET 2001


Petri wrote:
>> At the end of the story, the Blot declares: "Mickey and O'Hara had sent
me to jail! So I thought to have Mickey kill O'Hara... he would have gotten
the chair, and my revenge would have been complete!"
> This is a bit different in the Finnish version. There was no death penalty
in Finland at that time (nor is now) so the punishment has been changed to
life sentence.

Interesting! So, the Finnish (or German) editors probably had to change also
the dialogue in the following two panels, when the Blot explains his
"alternative" revenge plan (as Mickey didn't manage to actually kill
O'Hara):
"Mickey had pleaded guilty, so he would have been executed all the same!
After his death, I would have revealed the truth to O'Hara, who - knowing to
have caused his friend's death - would have committed suicide, maybe!"
(Actually, this sounds a bit lame... it's hard to believe Mickey would have
been sentenced to death because of an *attempted* murder...)

In the wonderful book about Romano Scarpa "Sognando la Calidornia" (by
Becattini, Boschi, Gori, and Sani) there's an interesting note about the
story: it seems possible that Martina got the initial inspiration from John
Dickson Carr's novel "The Mad Hatter Mystery" (1933), whose plot revolves
about a criminal who steals hats. So, the presence of the Mad Hatter from
Alice in "The Blot's Double Secret" is not so bizarre, after all...

Ciao,
Armando




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